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Now, the ombudsman has found that a county council social worker made assumptions about the man’s capacity to make his own decisions without carrying out a proper assessment. It has also ruled that the borough council delayed considering his housing application.

The county council met with the man in early 2014 to discuss him moving from the care home and it was said that extra care housing would be his best option but was not available.

The social worker gave the man the option of moving to another care home with more access to the community and activities, but there wasn’t a place available.

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After that, his psychologist enquired about a move to his own property but the social worker said the man lacked mental capacity. No formal capacity assessment was done.

In March 2015, the man was taken to hospital with an infection but when he was discharged the following month he refused to go back to the care home.

When his social worker again said he lacked insight into the kind of support he needed, without a formal assessment, a second social worker became involved and disagreed, feeling he could make his own decisions. That was then seconded by his consultant who assessed him as having “full capacity”.

Nuneaton Town Hall.

He agreed to move to a different care home temporarily in May 2015 but in November 2015 the borough council’s extra care housing panel rejected his application as he did not meet the age criteria.

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Over the following months, he continued to bid on different properties with the council but didn’t get a tenancy until December 2016.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “Mental capacity assessments should be carried out to determine whether people are able to make proper decisions about themselves and their care. It is not enough for social workers to deny people the opportunity to make their own life decisions and simply act on their belief that something is in a person’s best interests without making a formal assessment.

“In this case the man made clear his unhappiness at being left in a care home when he wanted to live in the community, and has had the injustice of not knowing whether he could have moved to live independently sooner had both authorities acted appropriately.”

The county council has agreed to apologise to the man and pay him £2,000. It has also agreed to review its practices to ensure that mental capacity assessments are carried out at the appropriate times and documented properly.

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A county council spokesperson said: “We are very sorry that the social work practice in this case did not meet our usual high standards. We recognise that there was considerable unnecessary suffering caused to the individual concerned by our actions and we have apologised and paid the compensation sum to him as the LGO recommended.

“It is important that we learn from this case and reduce the risk of anything similar in the future. We have therefore implemented a number of measures to improve practice in undertaking MCA assessments, including providing additional training, and identifying experts in MCA from our staff group who can support all front line staff and managers to improve their knowledge and understanding.”

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council has agreed to apologise and pay the man £300.

Cllr Julie Jackson, portfolio holder with responsibility for housing said: “The council, as always, is very sorry when our services fail to meet the high standards rightly expected by our customers.

“The findings of the LGO have prompted us to review working practices between WCC Adult Social Care and NBBC Housing colleagues, to ensure that the frustrations and service delays experienced by the complainant are not repeated.”